From kanun-ı kadim (ancient law) to umumun kuvveti (force of people): historical context of the Ottoman constitutionalism
Author
Sönmez, E.
Date
2016Source Title
Middle Eastern Studies
Print ISSN
0026-3206
Publisher
Routledge
Volume
52
Issue
1
Pages
116 - 134
Language
English
Type
ArticleItem Usage Stats
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Abstract
This paper attempts to examine the prevailing scholarly view on the Young Ottoman and the Young Turk movements, which postulates that the concept of constitutionalism was solely and directly based on the western model, imported by the constitutionalist movements to the Ottoman Empire. As a child of the ‘modernization theory’, this approach mostly concentrates on European impact in an isolated manner, thus overlooking not only the manifold sources of the Ottoman constitutionalism, but also the means of legitimation that the Young Ottomans and the Young Turks cultivated. In view of this, I seek to shed light on the historical context of the Ottoman constitutionalism, by pointing out how the Young Ottomans and the Young Turks perceived the power struggles in the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and built continuity between themselves and the political position that aimed to restrict the royal prerogative before the nineteenth century. © 2015 Taylor & Francis.
Keywords
Ahmed RızaNamık Kemal
Ottoman constitutionalism
The Young Ottomans
the Young Turk movement
Şinasi